


dare to eat a peach

by Moriwen



Category: Sapphire and Steel
Genre: F/M, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-20
Updated: 2015-12-20
Packaged: 2018-05-07 21:43:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5471732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moriwen/pseuds/Moriwen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Time is like a corridor, where three may walk abreast.</p>
            </blockquote>





	dare to eat a peach

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Clocketpatch](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Clocketpatch/gifts).



_Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?_  
_I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach._  
_I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each._  
_I do not think that they will sing to me._

 

* * *

 

**one.  
**

"Imagine a boat," Sapphire says.

The boat is beached on the hot wet sands by the shore of the Aegean sea. The man who leans against its prow is a young man, and then an old man with a gray beard telling stories, and then dead.

As time and wind wear away at the sea-tested timbers, the wood of the boat twists and cracks and rots. Men come, the heroes of Greece, who once cut the wine-dark sea with this prow, and they mend the boat. One by one, the planks are replaced, the decks and the hull and the crow's nest, and the tall masts are lowered and new white pines raised in their place, and sails are folded away and the white hands of women weave new sailcloth to fly there.

"Imagine a boat," says Sapphire. "Imagine that every part of that boat, one by one, is taken away and replaced. Is it still the same boat?"

The docent blows a bright pink bubble and pops it with a snap, unimpressed. "Don't touch the exhibits," she says.

* * *

Silver's fingers are quick and strong as he ties the narrow cords about Steel's wrists, nestling knots into the small hollows behind his thumbs where tendon meets muscle. After he ties each knot he gives it a little pat with those long fingers, pressing it into place where it rests against the pisiform bone. Steel flexes his muscles in response, and the timbers of the mast creak but the cords hold.

"Carbon nanotubes," says Sapphire, leaning against the mast and breathing down Steel's neck. "Thank Diamond next time you see her."

"Hold _still_ ," says Silver, and gives an exaggerated eye-roll in Sapphire's direction.  
 

* * *

 Steel is tied to the main-mast with Silver's careful knots, and it's disconcerting, he's accustomed to being stronger and sturdier than the time-ribbons of matter he passes through and among. It would be better if Sapphire were here grounding him, but instead she's with Silver at the stern, her hand on the technician's forehead like a blessing. No, _neutralizing vibrations_ , and before Steel can wrench himself away from the flight of fantasy he's caught up in the song and he's--

\-- _cold_ with the wind that lashes malicious on his face with a power like the power of Time and it tugs at his clothes straining the fabric taut on his chest and thighs and all he can see is --

\-- _blue_ above and below white foam white clouds blue blue blue like Sapphire's eyes like Sapphire's dress like the shape of her power burnt blue on his retinas blue like death on the lips and blue that suffocates and cutting through it the white gulls that --

\-- _screech_ maddening into the madding wind calling under the cavernous skies that echo with their cries sharp grating like metal groaning under torsion calling out life life live into the void but so much, so loud, so --

\-- _salt_ on his tongue salt spray on the lips and nose and mucous membranes of this inconvenient body and Steel is not a thing that eats no sour no savory sense-memory to fill the unrelenting sharp note of salt nothing but roads salted to melt ice salt under a plow to kill a field salt takes and destroys but there's --

\-- _Silver_ at his elbow and Sapphire taking his hand and Steel breathes into the touch before he tells them what he's learned, and "--can you, Silver?" and Silver says "I can" and --

_Breathe._

Sapphire touches one old plank at a time, in reverse order, and Steel's hand only shakes a little as he draws out the screws that replaced nails that replaced pegs. Silver slots out the pieces and lays them on the linoleum and watches them twist and shrink into fragments of living wood (new, new, _new_ ) and sprout leaves.

 

* * *

 There is only a tree now where they were, bursting up through the tiled floor, its strong lines tracing a continuum from new to old through rings of time. It is blooming with leaves and leaf-buds, yellowing and greening, and when the season comes they will fall and die.

(Somewhen else, a blazing ship sails out to sea, reflecting in the water with all the bright colors of a sunset, and sweet wood-smoke traces out a wake behind it.)

 

**two.  
  
**

" _Why_ is Silver here," Steel asks Sapphire, straightening his back into a pillar of indignation. He is holding a sword for her, tensing and bending it, fingers flickering on and through it: _steelsteelsteel._

"I can hear you, you know," Silver retorts, as insouciant as he can manage, and Sapphire flashes him a facet of a smile.

"We have it under control. There's no need for a technician," and Steel hands Sapphire the blade, eyes only for her. Her fingers brush the cuff of his shirt, not possessive but easy, unconscious as touching oneself. An awareness passes between them, and Silver has to cough twice before Steel includes him in the message.

_\--Get ready, Sapphire. If you can outplay the Echo, it will undo the hitch in Time._

_\--Yes, I know, Steel._

[Sapphire](http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-_TTxlWx0OgE/VCZAqj1iTlI/AAAAAAAAAJo/usqlgGSvvPo/s1600/14.%2BParis%2Bfrom%2Bthe%2BEarliest%2BPeriod%2Bto%2Bthe%2BPresent%2BDay%2BFencers%2B1899%2BBEFORE%2BTHE%2BATTACK.%2BAfter%2Ba%2Bwater-color%2Bby%2BJ.%2BKoppay..jpg) shimmers her hair into a braided chignon and weighs the sword in her hand. Her suit is loose blue silk -- ravishing -- not sapphire-blue but cobalt-blue, her breasts half-bared like an Amazon's, stockings to her knees, sashed about her waist in gold.

 _\--Frivolous_ , says Steel, reproving.

 _\--Practical, and appropriate to the period_ , Sapphire corrects.

 _\--Don't make a mistake. You have to be perfect._ A hand at her waist.

_\--Yes, Steel, I will._

Silver smiles away from them and twitches his fingers. Under Steel's hand, the sash shifts from gold to a glinting silver.

 

**three.  
  
**

Sapphire and Silver can dance through Time: hand in hand, lightfoot surefooted Sapphire and quick-Silver, _chass_ _é_ _, pas de valse,_ and the half-lives and light-years like ribbons in their hands, tracing out paths behind them.

 _Glissade, porté,_ Silver lifts Sapphire from one moment to the next, a gem bright in its setting. _Arriére,_ they are spinning backwards through Time, unwinding through their actions in reverse like a loose thread pulled back through its stitches.

 _Écarté:_ Sapphire alters Time, reflecting and refracting, while Silver lets Elements flow through his hands, sending her a laughing stream of altered accidents, substance untouched. _Pirouette, port de bras, plié._

Sapphire and Silver can dance through Time and space, but Steel has heavy feet.

**four.  
  
**

_\--Steel, what's the time?_

No.

"Steel," Sapphire says, "what's the time?"

"Half past nine," says Steel.

"And what time was it when we began the experiment?"

Steel closes his eyes. "Eight forty-four and thirty-five point nine two eight seconds, plus or minus point zero zero one seconds, in the standard time scale and our reference frame, accounting for leap seconds."

"What's the time now?"

"Half past nine," Steel says again.

There is blood rushing in Sapphire, audible to these ears, saliva in her mouth and a consciousness that is only at one place in space and time, and it itches or maybe she just itches now, and she had things that were like all of these but before it was only a shadow she cast and now she is crushed flat and colorless and--

"Nine twenty-six and twenty-one seconds," says Silver. "Twenty-two. Twenty-three. Twenty-four."

"Put it away, Silver," Steel says sharply.

Silver snaps his pocket-watch shut with a click of the mechanism. (Two years old, Sapphire remembers, and he'll be getting a new one soon: Silver is faddish, but he is also fastidiously careful, as technicians are. Nothing old comes near his workplace. Even Steel can't complain about a two-years-old watch.

Two years old: should be as plain to Sapphire as sight, plainer, like sums or syllogisms, not like these eyes that absorb photons refract rays activate photoreceptors spark optic nerve neurons--

Two years old, silver casing, steel workings, sapphire crystal, and the last is _her_ as much as -- more than -- these hands, no matter how much this proprioception insists otherwise--)

"It's not just decorative," says Silver, not quite apologetic. "Well, not now, anyway. None of us have timesense now. We're quite human."

"Human," Sapphire says, and she looks at Silver and Steel: flesh, blood and bone (breathing respirating digesting changing aging), and so, so alive.

"Stop frittering about, Silver," Steel says. "We need to contact Gallium. Sapphire's incapacitated and you're useless."

"Thank _you_ ," Silver replies, with a little bow. "And will you be bending some iron bars for us while we wait? --I _did_ notice you didn't include yourself in that little list, you see."

Steel turns his back and stalks two steps off, before stopping, because there's really nowhere to go.

* * *

 Silver has, in his vest: a set of tweezers; blueprints for a particle accelerator; a silver-plated spork; several keys, various sizes; one lock ( _not_ matching any of said keys); a lady's powder compact, with mirror; a toothbrush; and two shillings and sixpence in small change.

 Silver _needs_ , apparently, in order to jury-rig an inverse converter, the following (in rapid succession): Steel's tie-pin; the top button of Steel's shirt; Steel's cuff-links; Steel's bow tie; the _second_ button of Steel's shirt; a lighter, which he retrieves from Steel's pants pocket; and, for a change of pace, Sapphire's earrings.

* * *

"Oh, don't mind me," Silver sighs, brushing against Steel with his armload of gadgets.

"Surely," Steel appeals to Sapphire, "you must know some way to make him hurry."

Sapphire raises an eyebrow. Silver blows her a kiss.

* * *

 "This is intolerable," Steel says, for the third time.

Silver is sitting on the high back of a chair, tipping it onto two legs, twiddling at his device. "I can't imagine," he says, "why you're so impatient to be back in your usual form. Why, what are you _afraid_ will happen, while you're all _human_ , warm-blooded, _mammalian--_ "

"Hullo! what's all this?" asks Gallium, appearing crouched on the table.

" _Nothing_ ," say all three of the others together.

* * *

 "Better?" Silver asks, as Steel fixes his cuffs, a returned metallic stiffness to his motions.

"Of course. It was very strange, to be ... human. I am glad to be returned to my own matter."

"That's good," says Silver, and means it.

"Yes."

"Shall I help you with that shirt?"

" _No,_ Silver."


End file.
